Prison Suicides: An Economics Perspective

In discussing the confusing and confused results and arguments about the deterrence effects of the death penalty, I once wrote that it did not surprise me that studies had conflicting results. In fact it would not have surprised me to learn that, in fact, the death penalty provides only minor deterrence if any.



My reasoning was this: there are many fates worse than death. The death penalty is surely not the worst thing with which we can threaten potential murderers. Prison conditions can be truly horrible, bordering on being so intolerable that prisoners would actually prefer being on death row to being in the general prison population. And some would prefer death to life in the general prison population. [see my article on The Economics of Cruel and Unusual Punishment for more].



One implication of my earlier work is that if prison does indeed provide a fate worse than death, then the suicide rate among prisoners should be higher than that in the general public. And if that is the case, it should not be surprising that the death penalty adds little in the way of marginal deterrence.



And now, thanks to Tim Worstall, I have come across some evidence consistent with this analysis:

There were around 600 deaths in custody in England and Wales last year, according to a report published today.



The figure, calculated by the Forum for Preventing Deaths in Custody, covers deaths in prisons, police cells, secure hospitals and young offender institutions and includes those from natural causes, suicides and murders.



Around 400 of the deaths were due to natural causes and 200 were self-inflicted, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Justice said.

As Mark Wadsworth points out, this is actually a lower death rate (although a vastly higher suicide one) than the general population.

The implications of this finding are clear: instead of arguing about whether to institute or re-institute the death penalty, we should be encouraging our gubmnts to worsen prison conditions. Bad prison conditions would serve as a much greater deterrent than threats of the death penalty for many potential murderers.